Embla, the first woman, came from an elm tree in the standard Norse mythological tradition.
Embla appears beside Ask in Völuspá and in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda. The gods find the pair on a shore and transform them into human beings by granting breath, consciousness, movement, appearance, and speech or hearing, depending on the translation and source.
Embla's name has a less certain etymology than Ask's. Medieval and modern interpretations commonly connect her with an elm, while some scholars have proposed associations with a vine or other plant imagery. The tree-origin story therefore carries both a traditional identification and a degree of scholarly uncertainty.
Readers often confuse Embla's elm with Yggdrasil, the cosmic ash tree. They are different: Embla is the mythic first woman, while Yggdrasil structures the worlds of Norse cosmology. The elm answer remains the conventional one used in general-reference works and fair trivia questions.